1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to invoking objects in a distributed computing environment, and more specifically to selecting parameters for return to an invoker in the distributed computing environment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typically, an object contains data and methods that operate on the data. To invoke the methods of the object, a requester can send a message to the object to execute the methods. For example, in a Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) and Internet Communications Engine (ICE), either of which can be used as middleware on a network, a client computer operating the requestor can send messages to the object on another computer in the network regardless of the programming language the object was written in.
An example of the message can be the invocation of a method to insert a value in a database. Specifically, in an employee database containing multiple records of employee information, a method to insert the last name of a new employee can be                void setLastName (inout “Bates,” out, . . . , in) throw E1 E2        
Thus, the message corresponding to the method format above is transmitted to an object to invoke the method setLastName. The string value, “Bates,” is added to the employee database and upon completion, the method returns reply data to the requestor. For example, for the exemplary method above, the reply data will be associated with “inout,” “out,” and “throw.” Some methods that have no reply data will return nothing to the requester. However, if there is reply data, then the reply data will always return to the requestor.
On a network, multiple invoked methods will return reply data. An aggregation of all the methods returning reply data increases network traffic and degrades overall network performance. Further, if the requestor invokes a method and does not want reply data, then the requestor has no option but to process the reply data upon arrival. By processing each and every reply data, the requestor may not operate efficiently.
Accordingly, what is needed is a method and an apparatus for invoking objects while having the capability to select the reply data returned to the requestor invoking the object, thereby reducing network bandwidth and optimizing requestor operation.